A drop in the funding bucket

To cure or prevent diseases, scientists first have to figure out what causes them.

And then identify possible treatments or ways to prevent those conditions.

Many of these treatments are tested in animals to make sure they are safe and work the way scientists suspect.

But after that, there are rounds of clinical trials in people, with doctors looking to see if the treatments are effective and don’t have unexpected side effects.

The bottom line: Curing disease is not cheap.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is donating a large amount of money.

Which is why it has generated quite a bit of positive buzz, like the video put out by the Science Philanthropy Alliance, a coalition of nonprofit institutions and foundations dedicated to increasing investment in basic science.

But even $300 million a year for the next 10 years pales in comparison to what other organizations have already been spending to cure disease.

According to data gathered by NBC News, over the past 10 years the Howard Hughes Medical Institute gave $8 billion to scientists for their research.

And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent more than $10 billion since its founding in 2000 to fight malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases.

Pharmaceutical companies spent even more on the development of new drugs and vaccines — $58 billion in 2015.

But one of the biggest spenders for both basic science and clinical research in the academic realm is the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In 2016, the NIH had an annual budget of $32 billion, targeted at researching causes of diseases and developing new ways to treat or prevent them.

In an interview with NPR, Dr. Francis Collins, Ph.D., the director of the NIH, and a physician-geneticist and former leader of the Human Genome Project, welcomed the contribution by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

But he added it won’t even make up for the drop in NIH funding over the past 16 years.

Even in the United States some people can’t afford lifesaving medications.

And then there are all the other factors that contribute to the health of a country’s population — adequate housing, food stability, clean water, living wages, and universal access to healthcare.

No matter how many drugs or medical treatments are developed, these will still need to be addressed.

“If the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is serious about integrating the promotion of equality into its disease prevention and cure goal, it should transcend the narrow technological focus of dominant global health approaches and invest in the broad societal underpinnings of health,” Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Sc.D., a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, told Healthline in an email.

Lack of these basic necessities has contributed to the poor life expectancy in many countries.

In Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Uganda, the average life expectancy in 2015 was less than 60 years, according to WHO. They are not alone.

The United States — one of the biggest spenders on medical technology — comes in 31st place, with an average life expectancy of 79.3 years.

As seen with other diseases like heart disease, bacterial infections, and cancer, new medical technologies and drugs can be powerful tools for improving global health.

But only if everyone has access to them.

“Any such effort would also need to challenge the global rules that enable corporate interests to trump people's health,” said Birn, “as in the case of pharmaceutical profiteering that impedes access to essential medicines across most countries.”